Verizon 4G LTE back online

Verizon Wireless has restored its 4G LTE network, following an outage over the past 24-36 hours that saw customers dumped back onto 3G or even 2G data connections. The cause of the outage is yet to be confirmed - Verizon said only that it was a "technical issue" - but subscribers across the US were impacted as the high-speed service went offline, embarrassingly just days after the carrier had celebrated its first year of 4G service.

Reports initially suggested that the downtime was limited to the midwest, with customers in Chicago, lower parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa all reporting issues getting online with their 4G smartphones, tablets and modems. That quickly spread to impact other areas, however, until users across the US found their LTE had become unreliable.

Verizon had confirmed the problem around 17 hours ago, though at the time was saying that 3G data was unaffected along with calls and texts. Some users suggest that's not been the case, however, though the service seems to be back up and running again now.

Nonetheless, rumors have circulated that the outages have impacted the launch of high-profile devices like the Galaxy Nexus and the DROID 4, which were widely expected to hit shelves this week but remain unannounced. Earlier this month, Verizon announced plans to buy the AWS spectrum from US cable companies, in a $3.6bn deal which would give it copious amounts of space to further develop its LTE offering.